PLANS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 341 



as a place of shelter and refreshment to ships bound to 

 Southern lands. That plan, however, he also postponed 

 till his return. 



Then he began the real business of the voyage, the search Search for 

 for that part of Terra Australis which must exist, as he ^straiis 

 believed, between the 3Oth and the 36th degree ; and 

 experience proved, he argued, that between these degrees, 

 both in the North and in the South, are the richest, pleas- 

 antest, and most fruitful countries in the world. 



First, he sought for that part of Terra Australis which 

 the English privateer Captain Davis declared he had seen 

 in 28 in the year 1680. But Roggeveen could only find 

 there a little island, which he called Easter Island, because Easter 

 he discovered it on Easter Day. It is now agreed that s an ' 

 this most interesting of Pacific islands is the same land 

 that Davis had seen. But Roggeveen sailed on puzzled 

 and disappointed. We cannot exactly make out his 

 course. So says Captain Cook, and so says Captain 

 Cook's modern editor. He sailed eight hundred leagues 

 without discovering land. Then, in about 1 5, he discovered 

 exceedingly beautiful islands, which modern writers tell 

 us were the Samoan group. But Roggeveen despaired, Samoa, 

 and decided to sail to the East Indies, in spite of the protest 

 of officers who urged that he should winter in the land 

 of Quiros, which, they said, could not be above one hundred 

 and fifty leagues away. He found islands in about 11, 

 which some thought were part of Terra Australis Incognita. 

 At last he reached Java, where, as in Le Maire's story, 

 his ships were confiscated by the East India Company, 

 as the ships of an interloper. 



Once more, the search for Terra Australis Incognita Disappoint- 

 had failed. But, once more, it had failed in a way that JJJJ*"* and 

 enabled the party of Quiros to argue that the existence 

 of the unknown continent had not been disproved ; that, 

 on the contrary, things had been observed that tended 

 to strengthen the belief that the continent would in the 

 end be found by those who sought in faith. Roggeveen's 

 voyage was inspired by Quiros. It gave strength to the 

 movement of ideas that sent forth Cook. 



